Darkhenge by Catherine Fisher

Several months ago, Rob’s sister, Chloe, fell from her horse, and she’s been in a coma ever since, causing what’s left of his family to become increasingly fractured. Seeking a distraction from his frustrations, Rob, who is also an artist, gets a summer job at a nearby archeological dig. But soon, a giant tree that’s literally growing upside down is discovered, and a man named Vetch who claims to be an immortal, tells him that Chloe is not actually in a “normal” coma, but that her soul has been taken into the Unworld to be the king’s bride.

Fisher assumes that the reader is at least passingly familiar with things like “Tam Lin,” the myth of Taliesin and Ceridwen, and general myths and traditions surrounding the abducted bride, faery rings, and faery abductions in general. Since she lives in Wales and the book is an import from Great Britain, this is likely a fair assumption for the original audience. I’m not fond of how a couple things play out on a metanarrative level, but I love the world created, especially the Unworld, and the use of myth, and how the narrative, despite falling very heavily on the side of myth, still had a positive view of Christianity and had relative openmindedness on both sides.

While most readers will probably find Rob easy to get attached to, I think Chloe is rather like Sarah in Labyrinth in that readers older than her will get her and her motivations better than readers her own age, who are likely more likely to see her and hateful and selfish. (I don’t think she is. At least, no more so than any other 14-year-old who isn’t the “gifted” child.)

manga: Wallflower Vol 21

*blinks*

Was that actually almost plot and character development there?

In my Wallflower?

( spoilers )

ArchEnemy by Frank Beddor

With the exception of a rebellion early on about which I was rather “meh” (it seemed like Beddor needed something for Alyss and Dodge to do for a while to keep them out of the palace) I think this was a pretty strong conclusion to the series, and definitely a stringer book than its predecessor, Seeing Redd. Though, Alice may have made me appreciate it more than I might have otherwise.

I can’t help but think a conversation between Beddor and the Alice writers might be something like this:

Beddor: You know what’s cool? Queens! Queens are cool! I think I need to have a lot of them!
Alice Writers: Crazy Evil Queens are totally cool! Of course, all good rulers are traditionally men, and that shouldn’t change.
Beddor: You are stupidheads.
Alice Writers: Did you say something?
Beddor: Not a thing. Know what else is cool? Women who discover long lost fathers but are more concerned about whether or not their queen would ever trust them again than being incomplete without paternal approval.
Alice Writers: What? How can she have adventures without constantly fretting about her father? Unless it’s the Boyfriend thing. Personally, we’re prone to having heroines torn between untrustworthy men who may or may not have good intentions and chivalrous sleezes with hearts of gold.
Beddor: I’m more prone to honest, loyal, angsty, swashbuckling (if sometimes annoyingly overprotective) bodyguards who don’t get in the way of the heroine doing her thing myself, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt for a girl to have someone to go on adventures with her, as long as he doesn’t get in the way of saving the world and all.
Alice Writers: Saving the world is more important than angsting over men?
Beddor: Go away Stupidheads, I have to write about royal assassins silently bonding as they take on armies.

Given recent discussions, it may be worth noting that Beddor has a fairly positive take on Dodgson. The worst thing this Dodgson does is assume that a little girl’s claims of coming from another, fantastical world are the product of her imagination. Which, of course, is pretty traumatic if the little girl knows it’s true and thought he was the only one who believed her, but is also understandable.